Manufacturing an aircraft engine and performing maintenance on the same after it has been brought into service involves a significant amount of testing. As a person skilled in the art would know, such tests generally involve testing engine systems when it is in both an operational (engine fuel ignited, engine rotating) and nonoperational (no ignition, nonrotating) mode. As a practical matter, certain systems can only be tested while an engine is running. However, certain others can be tested when the engine is static, i.e. in a nonrotating mode. For example, virtually every present day commercial jet aircraft engine has certain electrical and pneumatic systems that can be tested on the ground while the engine is not running. It has been industry practice to fully test these systems upon engine build-up prior to its installation on an airplane They may also be tested after installation during periodic maintenance of the aircraft.
In the past, testing these systems has been a long and tedious process. Generally, they involved manually testing individual circuits and pneumatic lines, for the most part on a one-by-one basis. The usual procedure was for a technician to manually stimulate a system to be tested, such as placing voltage and current across an electrical circuit or putting air pressure into a pneumatic line, for example, and then measuring the circuit or line's response to the stimulation. Once one circuit or line had been tested, the technician would move on and test another. To test all static, non-rotating systems of a typical commercial jet aircraft engine in this manner generally required six to eight man-hours. The present invention is a system that provides fully automated testing and has reduced the man-hours required per engine test to approximately one hour. Implementation of the invention by an aircraft manufacturer or maintenance facility therefore provides the potential for realizing significant cost savings over the long term.